Are Germans scanning emails like Yahoo?

The latest Yahoo revelations once again raise the question: Who reads all our digital communication? Former Yahoo employees claim that the internet giant has been monitoring hundreds of millions of customer mails. Yahoo apparently received a classified directive from a national intelligence agency demanding that incoming customer mails be scanned in real time. The former employees stated that the directive was sent by either the NSA or the FBI.

The first reported case of this kind

To comply with the request, Yahoo built a special software program that has been in use since April, reports the “Washington Post” newspaper. The software searches for a specific character string. This is probably the first time the industry has confirmed a nationwide screening and monitoring of information in real time performed by a provider itself and not a US authority. Until now, authorities have regularly viewed information saved in individual email boxes or have monitored mailboxes. The fact that a program was developed for the US government adds a new dimension to surveillance methods. In response to questions, Yahoo merely stated, “Yahoo is a law abiding company and complies with the laws of the United States.”

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